Diabetes

Novocell intends to combine stem cell engineering and encapsulation technologies to treat diabetes. This will require the directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to insulin producing cells. Novocell is the first company to engineer hESCs into definitive endoderm, the gatekeeper cells that differentiate into the pancreas, liver and other cells, tissues and organs. The methods for producing the endoderm lineage was published in Nature Biotechnology in October 2005 Efficient Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells to Definitive Endoderm.

Novocell further demonstrated that the definitive endoderm cells can be further differentiated into pancreatic endocrine cells many of which secreted high levels of human insulin. This work was published in Nature Biotechnology in October of 2006 Production of Pancreatic Hormome-Expressing Endocrine Cells From Human Embryonic Stem Cells.

Before transplantation into diabetic patients, the hESC-derived insulin producing cells will be encapsulated in order to protect these cells from the patient’s immune system.